A Tree Hollowed By Termites

You couldn’t have asked me to deliver this lecture because of my experience in Disinvestment! And I haveno access to classified information on security affairs. Therefore, for myself alone, and based solely on myown study—much of it of the writings of experts like you!

And I do hope that what I say will not now trigger some more ‘‘Diary Items’’—that it is becausethe Defence Minister is speaking on Disinvestment that the Disinvestment Minister has chosen to speak onDefence!

A manuscript—already around 175 pages. By the time I revise it to shorten it—at least 250 pages! Today,I can list just a few conclusions—I do regret having to excise the evidence that has led me to theconclusions: in part because the conclusions are the obvious ones, in part because the evidence is in manyinstances as delectable as it is telling. But such is the discipline of the Army that I must stick to the timelimit.

A moment of substantial achievements, and several favourable turns—from the victory in Kargil to the turnof events after 9/11. But foreboding.

We often say, ‘‘Anything is possible. What one needs is political will.’’ In saying that we use theword ‘‘will’’ as if what matters is that the person at the top have the will to carry through aventure. That is of course true in a sense: at times an individual makes all the difference—Gandhiji duringthe Independence Struggle, Sardar Patel in the integration of princely states. But the more enduringsignificance of the expression ‘‘political will’’ is not as the will of an individual. It is as theability of a political system to deliver. That is what is being put in question every other day.

Defence forces are to a country what an iron railing put around it is to a tree: in the end, howsoeverstrong the railing, howsoever sturdy and well-polished it looks, it cannot protect a tree that has beenhollowed by termites from within: the storm shall fell it. What is it that the Soviet armed forces could dowhich would make up for the sclerosis that the communist regime had imposed on the country? Could themissiles, the atomic arsenal compensate for the stagnation?

Correspondingly, think of Bihar. A population of 83 million, that is a population 30% larger than that ofBritain, of Italy, a population equal to that of Germany, and an area 40% as extensive as Britain. In thisvast area, over this huge population, governance has evaporated. If I were running the ISI, I wouldn’t wastelives in Kashmir. I would just smuggle 20-30,000 AK-47s through Nepal into the state. The caste-riven peoplewould begin killing each other, and all the forces the country could muster would get bogged down in restoringorder.

Or take Pakistan and China. Only a policy conceived with the perspective of 20-30 years, only strategiesactually implemented and that without wavering for 20-30 years can counter what is afoot. But if the horizonof the political class is the hulla of the day in the legislature, or the debating point that can be extractedfrom the headlines of the day, or the next bout of elections, how can any policy be sustained for 20-30 years?

For the same reasons, will the growing economic strength of China not get translated into militarystrength? And, will the growing economic distance between China and India not get translated into a greaterdistance between their capabilities at force projection and ours at warding off such projection?

Salvaging the system of governance is the imperative that all of us—those in the defence forces,ex-servicemen, ordinary citizens—must attend to today. The armed forces are in fine fettle. We must getgeneral governance up to their standards!

"Not India"

An implacable foe. No other identity other than ‘‘not India’’, the one whose destiny, whosereligious mandate is to break India. True, there are many divisions in Pakistani society—even in regard towhat is true Islam; but there is unanimity on two things—that Kashmir must be wrested, and on what must bedone to India.

There is progressive Talibanisation of Pakistani society. The only recourse for Pakistan is to direct thisexplosive force on to external targets. It has waged a very successful strategy: over 61,000 have been killed,and yet the strategy has not provoked a retaliatory war. Quite the contrary, the strategy has worked wondersfor the agencies and individuals who have directed it—it has multiplied their importance, influence,personal wealth.

True, Pakistan has been isolated after 9/11: but it has also been able to extract postponement of duestotalling $ 12 billion, and additional aid, grants and write-offs of another $ 8 billion. But because opinionhas turned against cross-border terrorism, will concentrate on fomenting internal fissures, taking advantageof internal mal- or non-governance. And it has been able to build the infrastructure for such disruption. Thatour agencies have been able to detect and smother 161 modules of the ISI etc. is a real achievement. But thenumber also indicates that ISI etc. have been able to set up these modules in the first place. Furthermore,161 are reported to have been uncovered but some of the ones exist. Interrogations reveal that in ever so manyinstances, the agents were able to obtain ration cards and other papers to establish themselves as Indians—oftenby just paying paltry bribes of Rs 2,000-4,000 .

Terrorism is everywhere: cells have been discovered in India, Southeast Asia, Europe. Sometimes it seemssome believe that Al-Qaida is the only problem, that if it is dealt with, the problem is licked. Butnomenclatures mean nothing: recall the ease with which groups that were outlawed in Pakistan just changedtheir names and have continued their operations. Al-Qaida is but one of the limbs of this octopus.

There are already sanctuaries for terrorists targeting India in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Arakan inMyanmar—and within India. ISI moving systematically to use vacuums of this kind: madrasas along our borders.Just one example: in the district in Nepal that borders the Siliguri corridor there are 33 madrasas; 25 ofthese 33 have been established since 1980.

This is compounded by the rapid Islamisation of Bangladesh: a symptom is the ever-swelling Bishwa Ijtema atTongi each year: this year about 40 lakh attended. After 1971, the Jamaat-e-Islami had lost practically allinfluence. As the years went by both the national parties began courting it, specially at election time. Nowit is a part of the Government.

Kill a chicken to frighten the monkey

China itself does not regard India as a rival, it benchmarks itself against the US. But it regards India asa potential nuisance in part because of India’s size, and potential; even more so because of what itconsiders is th likelihood that India will become an instrument of the US for containing China. Hence thelemma that India is to be kept tied down in South Asia. A representative passage from a Chinese strategist:‘‘In the next century, to split China’s western part, or more specifically, to split China’s Tibetanregion.... is probably the target of the Western world’s geopolitical strategy. Having pushed Russianorthward, creating a political barrier like Tibet or Xinjiang between China and the oil-producing countriesin Central Asia conforms to the strategic interests of the West to control permanently the world’sgeographic and energy centre. This dovetails with India’s political plot to create a Tibetan buffer zonebetween China and India. Currently, India is pulling out all the stops to convince the West that it is willingto play the vanguard for the West’s effort to achieve this goal, under the prerequisite that the West willadopt an appeasement policy towards its nuclear option.’’

For this purpose, ‘‘murder with a borrowed knife’’: arms aid to Pakistan, Chinese advances inMyanmar, the reorientation of Chinese strategic doctrine, and the consequent overhauling of the PLA. This hascrystallised around three propositions: To ensure that in whatever they do, others—in particular countriesneighbouring China—always bear in mind China’s interests, and her likely reaction; to ensure that if a waris to be fought for defending China, it is not fought on China’s soil; to acquire overwhelming capacity for‘‘local wars under high-technology conditions.’’

This in turn requires that China build the capabilities to inflict on the adversary, at the very outset,such terrific losses—for instance, by crippling vital nodes of the victim—at such lightning speed that theobjective is achieved, the adversary is ‘‘taught a lesson’’, and allies are scared away from standingby the victim.

To implement this strategy:

• Develop ‘‘magic weapons’’—from those that will blind satellites to ones that will disorient theguidance systems of missiles; from ones that will disrupt power grids, civil aviation control systems,telecommunication and broadcasting networks; to chemical or gaseous agents that can disorient entirepopulations in an area.
  
  
• Identify the ‘‘particular vulnerabilities’’, the ‘‘acupuncture points’’ of the victim.

Chinese strategic literature devotes much space and analysis to identifying such points for the US. Itwould be hazardous for us to assume that they would not be conducting similar analyses for India. And alwaysremember the admonition to the Chinese of the Vice Commandant of the Academy of Military Sciences, Beijing,General Mi Zhenyu: ‘‘For a relatively long time, it will be absolutely necessary that we quietly nurse oursense of vengeance. We must conceal our abilities and bide our time.’’ Finally, of course, there isphysical positioning: the acquisition in the South China Sea of Paracel Islands in 1974, Spratly Islands in1988, Mischief Reef in 1995. Leasing of Coco Island in the Bay of Bengal .... The bases in Tibet....

It is often said that the era when large armies would march across international borders is over. Theproposition is true only where the armies are evenly matched. The Gulf War, the war in Afghanistan are recentreminders that if one side is manifestly the weaker one, forces will be hurled across borders also. To ensurethat forces do not march across our borders, we must be adequately prepared to crush them if they do. But wealso have to contend with what will arise from the preceding propositions: Local war under high technologyconditions, using magic weapons ‘‘to win without fighting’’. The best way for doing so—watch as theenemy, through internecine quarrels and mis- or non-governance weakens himself; if necessary, give him ahelping hand—is by exacerbating these internal ruptures.

And, once in a while, ‘‘kill a chicken to frighten the monkey’’—not so much to acquire territory,but to break the morale of the adversary, ensure he stays out of your way. It does not take much imaginationto infer the types of assaults on India that an enemy would find the least costly, the most effective, andtherefore the most tempting:

• Mass disruptions of the intertwined, integrated systems of a modernising military and economy that dependon ultra-modern modes of communication and command—power grids, stock markets, airport control towers,weapons guidance systems;
  
  
• Funnel arms and funds to warring groups in areas like Bihar;
  
  
• Funnel arms and funds, and give sanctuary to ‘‘freedom fighters’’ operating in vulnerablestretches—for instance, to the Kamtapur insurrectionists operating in the Siliguri corridor, to the BodoLiberation Front and ULFA on the other side, to the various extortionist groups available in Manipur to blockthe national highways;
  
  
• Orchestrate protracted, near-war to bleed the country—of the kind Pakistan has waged in Punjab, Kashmirand elsewhere;
  
  
• Suborn mafias, and through them execute Bombay-blasts type operations;
  
  
• Engineer an occasional foray in an outlying, loosely or poorly administered area-say, some stretch of theNortheast.
  
  
• We thus have to be prepared for more than large forces crossing international boundaries. That will cost alot. But that cost is the price of living in our times, in this neighbourhood.

National Interest

Every country works solely for its own interests. There’s little use in invoking justice, morality orlaw: indeed, doing so can be counter-productive—by sticking to ideals, so to say, we cleared the way forChina in Myanmar. If I could I would burn into the consciousness of every policy-maker in India theconversations between Henry Kissinger, Richard Nixon, Chou En-lai, Huang Hua. Every country works solely forits own interests as perceived by it at that time: this may not accord with our interests, or with ourperception of what is in the interest of even that country itself. For example: US aid to Pakistan in the wake of9/11.

The US approach was well set out by Kissinger in his account of the period when the USSR and China fellout: ‘‘The challenge for the United States was to make sure that it always had more options than either ofthe two parties within the triangle. This obliged the United States to stay closer to both Moscow and Beijingthan they were to each other, with a tilt towards Beijing since it was the Soviet Union which represented themore immediate and by far the more powerful threat.’’

This is what US policy will be in dealing with India vis a vis Pakistan, India vis a vis China: and it setsa limit to the extent to which it will heed India’s interests.

Past Imperfect

The way countries deal with us depends also on what the record has led them to believe is our nature: Chinahas carefully cultivated an image of being a porcupine—one that will brook no nonsense, one that will useforce to wrest what it feels it should have. Perception about us is ambiguous, at best, given events such asGoa, Sikkim, atomic weaponry, the 1971 war that broke Pakistan. But if 61,000 had been killed in the US, Chinaor Russia by terrorists trained, equipped, armed by a country, what would they have not done to take out thesource of the assault on them?

Security is a multiplicative function, not an additive one: the expression the Chinese use is indeedapposite: ‘Comprehensive National Strength’’. Among the pillars on which it is built is economicstrength.

Does anyone need armies today to bend Argentina and Brazil? Of the ones who keep counselling us to open adialogue with Pakistan, how many counsel President Bush to open a dialogue with Mr Saddam Hussein? Why is itthat Russia can be bent today on cryogenic engines, on Iraq, on nuclear disarmament—and China cannot?Economic strength and independence make all the difference.

Economic Levers

Today economic levers are routinely used to achieve political and diplomatic ends. To safeguard our freedomof action, our sovereignty, the first requisite is that we do not have to succumb to economic pressures. Noris it enough that ‘‘our fundamentals are strong’’. Nothing happened to the ‘‘fundamentals’’ ofSoutheast Asian countries in 1997. The ‘‘fundamentals’’ of Japan continue to be as strong as they were12 years ago—but the political stalemate has ensured that it has not been able to lift itself out of a bogfor a decade. The ‘‘fundamentals’’ of Mexico, Argentina, Brazil did not collapse overnight—but theireconomies did, and with that their freedom of action.

Therefore, when we do anything that slows economic progress, when we block the reforms that are necessaryfor that growth, we weaken the country. We expose it to danger: should we, for instance, have to turn to theIMF today, we would be squeezed not in spite of our atomic weapons, but because of them!

And how easy it is to slip: two years ago when we were losing almost a billion dollars every month; asingle wrong decision—for instance that the value of the rupee must be protected ‘‘at all cost’’—couldhave resulted in a run. Nor is it that when we thwart a reform—for instance, by blocking steps needed forcontaining governmental deficits—or by bringing work or trucks and trains to a halt, all we do is to slowdown economic progress. That is not the only consequence. We confirm the perception that India is not able inthe end to carry through its announcements. That perception itself is temptation to an enemy.

The lightning speed at which technology, the balance between countries, relations between them arealtering: our policies have to be ‘‘omni-directional’’ and our processes have to be swift enough tomatch these.

The countries that were to eventually form ASEAN had approached us at the very outset. We paid insufficientattention. The result is that a few days from now, China will be meeting the ASEAN leaders to finalise anagreement for a free-trade area. We will be meeting them to commence discussions for a trade and investmentarea of which we too can be a part.

Faced with a decision, our first instinct must be to see the repercussions it will have for nationalsecurity—take the case of ground handling at airports. But simultaneously, we must bring our ideas aboutnational security up to date. Take the signs at our airports ‘‘No photography allowed’’ in this age ofsatellite photography, when satellite images of half-meter resolution are becoming commercially available.

Facing Facts

We must face some facts: of inundation from Bangladesh, the Islamisation of Bangladesh, the madrasas on ourborders, the Chinese advances in Myanmar, the current ‘‘denial mode’’ in regard to Chinese economicadvances. A senior intelligence official said, ‘‘One word has killed us: examination.’’ We were askedin the early ’80s to identify Jamaat cadre who had infiltrated into the Kashmir administration, to identifymadrasas that had become centres for secessionist activity. What happened thereafter? There were reports ofthe demographic inundation of the Northeast. What happened? Only 850 kms of 3286 kms of fencing has as yetbeen completed on the Bangladesh border.